The present invention relates to toothbrushes.
One known form of toothbrush includes spring-mounted bristle holders. The advantages of providing spring-mounted bristle holders in brushes generally, and toothbrushes specifically, have long been recognized, and a number of patents describe various brush constructions for this purpose. For example, brush constructions including various types of spring-mounted bristle holder are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,882,544, 2,935,755, 3,082,457, 3,386,118, 3,683,442, 4,240,451, 4,240,452, 4,633,542 and 4,694,844. However, insofar as I am aware, none of these constructions has found widespread commercial use, presumably because of the limited bristle holder displacements permitted by the brush construction, the short useful life of the brush construction, and/or the relatively large expense required to produce the brush construction.
Another known form of toothbrush includes a brush head which is mounted at an obtuse angle with respect to the brush handle to permit better access to various surfaces of the teeth to be brushed. In the known constructions, however, the angle is fixed, and cannot be varied.
An object of the present invention is to provide a novel brush construction including spring-mounted bristle holders having advantages in one or more of the above respects.
Another object of the invention is to provide a novel brush construction permitting variation in the angle of the brush head with respect to the handle.
A further object of the invention is to provide a brush in which the brush head will always assume a position parallel to the surface being brushed, thereby increasing the brushing efficiency.